The Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage: A Practical Guide

Somewhere around the third day, a woman you have never met will stop her car, wind down the window and hand you a bag of tangerines. She will refuse thanks, bow, and drive off. This is osettai, and on the Shikoku pilgrimage it happens constantly.

The Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage is a 1,200-kilometer loop around Japan's fourth island, linking 88 Buddhist temples associated with Kukai, the monk who founded Shingon Buddhism. Walking it takes about 45 days. Most people do not walk it, and that is fine: buses, cars and bicycles all count, and so does doing a quarter of it and coming back next year.

Henro

What is the Shikoku pilgrimage?

It is a circuit, not a line. The route starts and ends in the same place, and the point of a circle is that you come back changed rather than arrive somewhere new.

The temples are linked to Kukai, posthumously Kobo Daishi, who was born on Shikoku in 774 and founded the Shingon school. He is believed by practitioners not to have died in 835 but to be in eternal meditation at Mount Koya, which is why pilgrims carry a staff representing him and write dogyo ninin, "two traveling together," on their hats and robes. However alone you are on the path, you are not walking alone.

The route as a fixed set of 88 temples took shape over centuries and became a mass practice in the Edo period, when commoners could finally travel. It has never stopped being used. The people you meet on it today are mostly Japanese, many of them retired, many walking after a bereavement.

A pilgrim is called an ohenro or just henro, and the word covers everyone: the person on foot with a pack, the bus group in matching hats, the couple in a rental car.

How long does the Shikoku pilgrimage take?

It depends entirely on how you travel.

On foot: about 45 days, with a realistic range of 40 to 60. That is roughly 30 km a day with no rest days, which most people cannot sustain. Budget six to eight weeks.

By bicycle: 20 to 30 days. Shikoku is mountainous and several temples sit at the top of long climbs.

By car: 10 to 14 days. This is how most Japanese pilgrims do it now.

By organized bus tour: 10 to 12 days, usually split across several trips, with a guide leading the chanting at each temple.

Kugiri-uchi, segmented pilgrimage, is the other common approach: walk one prefecture at a time over several years. Nobody considers this lesser, and the temple stamps in your book do not expire.

You can also walk it in either direction. Clockwise from Temple 1 is standard; counterclockwise, called gyaku-uchi, is harder because the signage assumes you are going the other way, and it carries more merit for exactly that reason.

How much does the Shikoku pilgrimage cost?

The pilgrimage itself is free. Temples do not charge admission. The costs are lodging, food and the stamps.

• Temple stamps: the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage Association raised the fee from ¥300 to ¥500 per temple. At all 88, plus about ¥2,000 for the book, that is around ¥46,000

• Starting equipment: ¥10,000 to ¥20,000 for the robe, hat, staff, stole, book and bell, all sold at Temple 1

• Lodging: ¥6,500 to ¥9,000 a night at a pilgrim inn with two meals, ¥3,000 to ¥5,000 at a business hotel, free at the tsuyado shelters some temples provide, free at the roadside huts built for walkers

• Food: ¥2,000 to ¥3,000 a day if you are not camping

A 45-day walk staying in inns lands somewhere around ¥400,000 to ¥600,000 all in. Camping and using free shelters cuts that by more than half. A bus tour covering all 88 over several trips runs in a similar range to the walk, compressed.

The route, prefecture by prefecture

Shikoku Henro

The four prefectures of Shikoku are traditionally read as four stages of practice, and the labels are surprisingly accurate to how the walk feels.

Tokushima, temples 1 to 23: the place of awakening. The first temples are close together across flat farmland, which is why the first three days feel easy and deceive people. Then comes Temple 12, Shosan-ji, the first nansho or difficult place: an 800-meter climb over 12 km that takes most walkers a full day. Tokushima is where roughly a third of the people who set out stop.

Kochi, temples 24 to 39: the place of ascetic training. The longest and emptiest prefecture, with enormous distances between temples along the Pacific coast, including a 75 km stretch with nothing. This is where the pilgrimage becomes a physical problem rather than a spiritual one.

Ehime, temples 40 to 65: the place of enlightenment. Gentler, greener, with more towns. Temple 51, Ishite-ji, sits in Matsuyama beside Dogo Onsen, one of the oldest hot springs in Japan, and most walkers take a rest day there.

Kagawa, temples 66 to 88: the place of nirvana. The smallest prefecture, temples close together again, and the end in sight. Temple 75, Zentsu-ji, is where Kukai was born and is the largest complex on the route. Temple 88, Okubo-ji, sits in the mountains, and the tradition is to return afterward to Temple 1 to close the circle, then go to Mount Koya to report to Kukai.

What you wear and carry

Chichibu-34 Kannon Temple Circuit

None of this is compulsory and all of it is available at Temple 1.

Hakui, the white sleeveless robe, is the one thing almost everyone wears. White is the color of death in Japan, and the robe was originally a burial garment: the pilgrim set out prepared not to come back.

Sugegasa, the conical sedge hat, carries a Sanskrit character and a verse about impermanence, and is genuinely good in both sun and rain. You do not remove it in temples.

Kongozue, the wooden staff, represents Kukai himself. You do not let it touch a bridge, because of a story about him sleeping under one and finding the night endless. At an inn you wash the tip of the staff before your own feet.

Nokyocho, the stamp book, collects the calligraphy and red seals at each temple, done by hand while you wait. It is the physical record of the journey, and many people are buried with theirs.

Osamefuda, name slips, are left at each temple and also given to anyone who offers you osettai. They are color-coded by how many times you have completed the circuit, from white for the first few to brocade for a hundred or more. Being handed a brocade slip is a small event.

What you do at each temple

There is a sequence, and nobody minds if you simplify it.

Bow at the gate. Wash hands and mouth at the water basin. Ring the bell, once, on the way in and never on the way out. Light a candle and three sticks of incense, then place your name slip and an offering in the boxes.

Then chant at the main hall: the Heart Sutra, the mantra of that temple's deity, and the mantra of Kobo Daishi. Repeat everything at the Daishi hall, which every one of the 88 has. Then take your book to the stamp office.

Ten to twenty minutes a temple if you do the full thing, and on a day with four temples that adds up.

Osettai

Nakasendo

Osettai is the custom of giving to pilgrims: food, drinks, money, a bed, a lift. It is not charity. The giver is understood to be making an offering to Kobo Daishi through you, so you are doing them a service by accepting.

You should not refuse. You give an osamefuda in return and say thank you. The correct response to being handed ¥1,000 by a stranger at a bus stop is to take it.

Walking pilgrims receive far more osettai than anyone else, which is one of the arguments for going on foot even if you only do a section.

When to go

Spring, March to May, is the classic season, with cherry blossom in the first prefecture and manageable temperatures. It is also the busiest.

Fall, October and November, is the other good window: dry, cool, with color in the mountains.

Summer is dangerous. Shikoku hits the mid-thirties with high humidity, and the Kochi stretches have no shade and no shops.

Winter is walkable on the coast and closed or icy at the mountain temples. The lodging is cheaper and the path is empty.

Typhoon season runs from August into October and will close roads and trails at short notice.

Where to stay

Shukubo, temple lodging, is available at about a dozen of the 88, with a vegetarian dinner and the morning service.

Minshuku and henro-yado are family-run inns along the route that specialize in pilgrims, usually with two meals and a drying room for your clothes. Reserve a day ahead; many are run by people in their seventies and will not answer a same-day call.

Tsuyado are free shelters at some temples, basic, sometimes just a covered floor. Zenkonyado are free rooms offered by private individuals.

Henro huts, over 100 of them, are small roadside shelters built specifically for walkers by a volunteer project. Sleeping in them is tolerated rather than encouraged.

Getting to Shikoku

Fly into Takamatsu, Matsuyama, Tokushima or Kochi from Tokyo or Osaka. By train, the Seto-Ohashi bridge carries the line from Okayama to Takamatsu in about an hour, and Okayama is on the Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen.

For Temple 1, Ryozen-ji, take the JR Kotoku line from Tokushima to Bando Station and walk about ten minutes.

Other pilgrimage routes in Japan

Shikoku is the most famous circuit, but Japan has many.

Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage Route

Kumano Kodo, on the Kii Peninsula, is a network of routes to the three Kumano grand shrines and a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Nakahechi route takes three to five days and has the best infrastructure for foreign walkers of any pilgrimage in Japan.

Yunomine Onsen

Yunomine Onsen sits on that route and is one of the oldest hot springs in the country, with a tiny wooden bath called Tsuboyu that is itself a listed World Heritage site and is used one party at a time.

Koyasan Pilgrimage

Koyasan is the destination rather than the route: the mountain monastery Kukai founded in 816, reached by the Nankai line from Osaka and then a cable car, with no shinkansen involved. The Okunoin cemetery path runs two kilometers under cedars past 200,000 graves to his mausoleum. Over 50 temples take overnight guests, and our guide to Mount Koya covers staying there.

The Saigoku 33 is older than Shikoku, linking 33 Kannon temples across the Kansai region including Kiyomizu-dera and Nara's Hase-dera.

The Chichibu 34 in Saitama is the short one: 34 Kannon temples in about 100 km, walkable in four or five days, and reachable as a series of day trips from Tokyo.

Dewa Sanzan A Journey to Rebirth

Dewa Sanzan in Yamagata is three mountains representing birth, death and rebirth, with 2,446 stone steps under 300-year-old cedars to the shrine on Haguro-san. Yudono-san, the third, forbids visitors to describe what is there. More on the route is on the Dewa Sanzan site.

Mount Mitoku

Mount Mitoku in Tottori, on the Sea of Japan coast, holds Nageiredo, a small hall wedged into a cliff face and designated a National Treasure. The ascent involves chains and tree roots, they check your footwear at the gate, and you cannot go alone.

The Nakasendo is not religious at all. It was the inland highway between Edo and the imperial capital, and the preserved section between Magome and Tsumago is an eight-kilometer walk through two Edo-period post towns.

If you only have a few days

Do the first five or six temples in Tokushima. They are close together, flat, well signed, and Temple 1 sells the full kit and explains the rituals in English. Two days gets you a real sense of the thing.

Or walk Temple 11 to Temple 12 over Shosan-ji, which is the hardest single day on the route and the one people talk about afterward.

Or skip Shikoku and walk the Kumano Kodo Nakahechi, which is designed for exactly this: three days, baggage transfer, inns booked in advance, and a UNESCO trail at the end of it.

A Setouchi and Kansai route gets you within reach of Shikoku without committing to the full circuit, and our guide to Japan's seasons covers when the walking is comfortable.